Radical Intimacy in Contemporary Art

Radical Intimacy in Contemporary Art focuses on practices that operate at the edges of sexuality and its socially sanctioned expressions. Using psychoanalysis and object-oriented feminism, Keren Moscovitch delves into the work of several contemporary, provocative artists to initiate a dialogue on the role of intimacy in challenging and reimagining ideology.

Moscovitch suggests that intimacy has played an under-appreciated role in the shifting of social and political consciousness. She explores the work of artists such as Leigh Ledare, Genesis P-Orridge, Ellen Jong, Barbara DeGenevieve, Joseph Maida, and Lorraine O’Grady. Through their radical practices, these artists engage in consciousness shifting in elegant, surprising, and provocative ways.

Guided by the feminist psychoanalytic canon of Julia Kristeva, and informed by the philosophy of Luce Irigaray and the critical theory of Judith Butler, Moscovitch situates these artists within the emerging lineage of feminist new materialism. She argues that the instability of intimacy leads to radical and performative objecthood in their work, acting as a powerful expression of revolt.

Through this line of argumentation, Moscovitch joins a growing group of philosophers exploring object-oriented theories and practices as a new language for a new era. In this era, the hegemony of subjectivity has been toppled, paving the way for a new world of human ontology that is built creatively, expressively, and in the spirit of revolt.